Chapter 529

... But nature took that moment to change their minds about sitting outside when the snow started coming down harder and the wind increased as well.

Inside the lean-to, they sat on their rolled-up sleeping bags atop the evergreen boughs while watching the fire and basking in the heat coming from it.

Morales put an arm around his wife. “It’s great to sit in here, but I can still feel the wind coming through the sides.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jasmine returned. “Ready to get to it?”

“It surely isn’t going to get any warmer in here tonight unless we do.”

The plastic sheet they had brought was wide enough to cover the ridgeline of the lean-to and down the sides a couple of feet, but there were only evergreen boughs to slow the wind on the rest of the sides.

Their hands had been cold before, but after working snow and clumps of frozen leaves into the evergreen boughs on the sides of their shelter, they were even colder. The light gloves they wore so they could fire their rifles were inadequate under the circumstances. Finally, the job was done, and they brushed the snow off their gloves and ski outfits. Pushing their hoods back, they sat on their rolled-up sleeping bags, their gloves again drying by the fire as the two basked in the heat radiating toward them.

“That’s better,” Morales commented. “It’s still cold in here, of course, but with the snowpack cutting the wind, I think we’ll be a lot more comfortable during the night.

“Well,” Jasmine said as she sat holding her hands out toward the fire, “at least you were smart enough to insist on bringing plenty of food. I wondered about that, since we were going to kill a buffalo and would have plenty of meat once we did so.”

Morales put an arm around her, pulling her tightly to him. Then after a quick kiss on her red nose, “As I told you, while Robinson and I were in that cell waiting to be sent here, I took the guards at their word, studied and practiced with the bow they provided. One of the guards must have liked me a bit because he told me that laziness and ill preparation were the root causes of most prisoners’ deaths. Oh, prisoners died from many things: freezing to death in the winter, falls, animal attacks, starvation, and a whole list of other things, but according to him, most deaths could be attributed to laziness and ill preparation. I’ll admit that I got away with some stupid things in the beginning, and... I was lucky beyond belief to be able to befriend Lobo. Chances are that without him I would be long dead, but one of the things that the paperwork and the guard stressed was to make sure to take food – plenty of food – with me when I left my place of safety. Even if I were just going to the field to gather food, or to go fishing, I always took at least a pocket-full of jerky, and my canteen was on my side on any excursion as well, summer or winter. In the beginning, I drank only the water that had been filtered through the canteen. After a while, I realized that the canteens would be lost or the filters would wear out sooner or later, so I began drinking the water from the spring. Come winter, we’ve used snow. So far, I haven’t even caught a cold.

“We were going several miles away from our home today, so I brought steaks, potatoes and a couple of pockets of jerky. We’ll go to sleep with full bellies and will have enough for a good breakfast in the morning. I brought plenty for the wolves as well.”

Jasmine hugged her mate back. “I knew you had packed plenty of food, of course, but I also brought the marshmallows I mentioned, and some jerky,” she said with a giggle, “plus four big pieces of our wedding cake – no use all that cake going to waste. I suspect that what I brought will be well smushed together by now, but it will taste good, anyway.”

Morales hugged his wife. “I’m proud of you. I would never have thought of the cake, let alone the marshmallows, but they sure sound good.”

The wolves had been away for a few minutes. When they returned, both with a smear of blood on their mouths, the two humans were in the process of building a crude spit over the fire. Normally, they would have built a smaller fire to cook over, allowing it to burn down to coals first, but the way the logs were positioned, the flames weren’t too high, somewhat protected from the snow, and mainly, the two didn’t want to wait for a cook fire to burn down.

“You know that chances are our meat will be well done on one side and rare on the other,” Jasmine said with a laugh. “But I’m almost hungry enough to eat it raw, anyway.”

Morales, who was using rocks to prop up larger limbs for spits, just grunted his agreement as he dropped another rock into place.

Shortly, the meat was on and cooking as the snow continued to come down. Both Jasmine and Morales had finished peeling and slicing potatoes that were now on smaller spits of their own. The wolves, still hungry despite their snack, lay beside the humans, enjoying the smell of the cooking meal and awaiting their share.

After they had finished their supper, Morales cut sections from smaller downed trees, splitting and stacking some of it just inside the lean-to in case the logs burned down too much during the night. That done, they ate their cake, then roasted and ate marshmallows for a time, both laughing and giggling like kids.

A little while later, as full darkness approached, the two sat quietly while leaning back against evergreen boughs that insulated them from the cold rock face.

“Jas,” he began as she snuggled in his arms, “are you ... I mean...” he stumbled.

She turned to study his face by the flickering firelight. “I am deliriously happy, if that’s what you’re trying to ask. “I love the outdoors. Quit worrying about our honeymoon. If I had to choose, this would be it. And, if we can figure out how to make love without freezing our butts off, it will be a perfect ending for our second night as man and wife,” she finished with a sexy little giggle.

“Uh,” he said while motioning to the wolves. “I mean ... well, they aren’t just animals. They’re way too smart to not understand, aren’t you guys?” he asked them. Then to his wife, “If we make love, we’ll be doing it practically in their faces.” Turning back to the wolves, he locked eyes first with Lobo, then Lila. “You will know, won’t you?”

Lobo made a chuffing sound while Lila whined and Jasmine chuckled.

“Well, I suppose my ... uh, sex could stand a night to recuperate,” Jasmine said with a sigh.

Lobo and Lila both got up, obviously intending to leave, when the two humans both yelled, “No.”

Speaking to them as if they were human, Jasmine continued, “Morales and I have the rest of our lives to make love, and well, even in the cave, you’re going to know what we’re doing, but this is a little too close for any kind of modesty.”

After the wolves were again lying nearby, Morales quietly said to his bride, “Besides, I almost froze my dick off just trying to piss in this weather.”

“Oh, tell me about it,” Jasmine grumped. “At least you don’t have to take your pants down – well, unless you have to do the other.”

“Speaking of which, we need to make our last call before bedtime. We’re going to have a full day ahead of us tomorrow, and we should get as much rest as possible.”

As always when they were out, Morales stood guard while Jasmine did her business, and she returned the favor for him.

Back in the lean-to, they smoothed out the evergreen boughs again, then sat to wipe their weapons dry, Jasmine giggling at the condoms the General had given them to stretch over the muzzles to protect the bores.

After eating the cake and sharing it with the wolves, of course, they zipped their sleeping bags together. Taking their ski outfits off, they crawled into the sleeping bags while still wearing their full clothing. They had intended to cover the bags with the furs they had brought, but as the wolves snuggled together, Jasmine got back out for a moment to cover the animals with the furs, instead. “Sleep tight, you two.”

They whined a thank you before each reached to pull the furs more snugly around themselves with their mouths, leaving only a portion of their snouts showing.

Jasmine took their ski outfits into the sleeping bags with them so the outfits would be warm when they put them on tomorrow morning. After kissing for a while, they fell asleep with her snuggled in his arms.

A couple of hours before daylight, Morales slipped on his ski outfit and added some of the wood he had cut to the much burned-down fire. Split wood produced more immediate heat, but wouldn’t last nearly as long as the two logs had. By daylight, the fire had again burned down, and Morales added the last of the wood he had cut, but by then, they were all up with the humans now in the process of fixing breakfast. There had been no indication of hunting animals, evidenced by Lobo and Lila not uttering a sound throughout the night.

The day started out gloomy with only a little lightening in the East to hint where the sun actually was, but so far, there was no wind, and there was only a scattered, light snowfall coming down. Morales retrieved the sections of paracord he had used on the lean-to, and after packing up, they cautiously approached the plains while wondering how far the buffalo had moved since the humans had last seen the animals yesterday. It turned out that they had moved only a hundred yards or so farther down the plains and were now all standing clumped together for warmth.

“Okay. Now we find a good position, wait for them to scatter out a bit, then pick out the one we want,” Morales said.

The wolves disappeared into the forest, presumably understanding to remain out of sight for now. The humans, downwind of the herd, worked their way along the edge of the forest, both fervently hoping that the wind would not change. Eventually, they found an old deadfall at the edge of the forest that would provide concealment for them. Now to wait until the herd was scattered out enough so that they could shoot one of the animals without the bullet continuing on to injure another one.

A few minutes later, one of the moderate sized animals had separated itself a bit from the rest. Jasmine put a hand on her husband’s shoulder to say quietly into his ear, “We’ve practiced at three hundred yards, and this is almost exactly that,” she said as she lowered the binoculars to dangle from her neck. “Take your time and get his rhythm down as he swings his head to wipe the snow away so he can get to the grass underneath. He swings his head twice, then crops the exposed grass before swinging his head again. There! See that? Two swings and his head stops for an instant. Catch him as his head ends the cycle and he hesitates before reaching for the grass.”

Morales slipped the condom off and put it in his pocket, settled the rifle comfortably in his grip, took a deep breath and tried to relax. His arm that supported the rifle was resting against the downed tree they crouched behind, its myriad limbs and the brush that had grown up around it concealing them from the buffalo. The sights were perfect, the beast clear as crystal in them, but Morales wanted a head shot – wanted all that beautiful pelt intact. Watch his rhythm. Watch his rhythm, he told himself. The fourth time the animal’s head reached the end of its swing, the .30-06 bucked in his hands and the animal slowly sank into the snow.

The herd seemed to jerk as one, all of them turning toward the sound, but neither Jasmine nor Morales moved, their bodies mostly concealed in the brush around the downed tree. After a moment, the animals resumed eating, apparently not even noticing that one of their number had just expired.

“Perfect,” Jasmine complimented.

“The rifle is sweet,” Morales quietly said as he stretched the condom over the muzzle again, worked the bolt, engaged the safety and recovered the empty shell casing. “I remember reading about buffalo hunters on Earth back in the eighteen hundreds,” he quietly said. “One of them was interviewed for a book and said he usually shot all morning and skinned all afternoon. Most of the time, the buffalo did nothing but continue to graze. They just didn’t associate the noise from a distance with any danger to them.

“But now we have to wait until they decide to move,” Jasmine said, resignedly.

“We could make a lot of noise, fire the rifles repeatedly, but ... that might cause them to learn to be afraid of us, or even stampede, I suppose. I sure as hell don’t want them to learn to act toward us the way they did the panther on my first buffalo hunt. The herd bosses knew he was a bad boy and went after his ass as soon as they saw him.”

Lobo and Lila were standing only a couple of feet away intently watching the humans as Morales went on. “They obviously know what wolves are, because Lobo drove them to me by just howling in the distance. They weren’t panicked, but they moved away from the sound.”

A moment later, Morales turned to where the wolves had been standing, but they were no longer there. There was a trail in the snow heading farther back into the woods, but no wolves.

Facing his wife, “Baby, do you think...”

Jasmine moved to snuggle closer to her husband as they continued to crouch behind the deadfall and bushes. “I think,” she said with a chuckle, “that two very important members of this hunt just left to move the buffalo away so we can begin skinning and field dressing our kill.”

A while later, there was a faint, wavering howl in the distance. “Shit,” Morales muttered, “I know who made that howl, but if it were night, it would still make the hair want to stand up on the back of my neck.”

The buffalo, obviously hearing, immediately reacted with the two largest bulls pawing and snorting as they turned to stare down the plains while the rest of the herd was becoming restless.

A few seconds later, there was an answering howl, the sound slightly different. That did it as far as the herd was concerned. They began to move away, in no hurry yet, but obviously moving from the danger – all but the two largest bulls who waited, facing the sound, obviously on full alert.